Why oOh! paid Executive Channel owners $68m

oOh!media this month announced its fourth acquisition within the past 12 months with the $68.5 million purchase of Executive Channel International’s Australia business (ECN), a national network of digital screens in office towers and classic advertising displays in carparks.

Charles Parry-Okeden is the chief executive and co-founder of Executive Channel, a business that launched in 2005. Parry-Okeden launched the business after 13 years as sales director for Buspak and then APN Outdoor.

ECN is forecast to contribute over $8 million of EBITDA to oOh! in CY2017 including about$3.2 million of estimated cost synergies forecast to be realised in CY2017, but before any revenue synergies, one-off integration costs and transaction costs.

Charles Parry Okeden

Highlights of the acquisition for oOh!:

• Secures for oOh! more than 1,020 screens in 280 buildings.
• Almost doubles oOh!’s presence in the highly desirable, high-dwell CBD environment to 630 office towers.
• Expands oOh!’s network of digital out-of-home screens to 6,500 across road, retail, fly, office towers, cafés, venues, gyms and sports environments.
• Consolidates oOh!’s position as the largest provider of out-of-home advertising in Australia.
• ECN has a portfolio of more than 110 property owners including Australia Square in Sydney, the Medibank Building in Melbourne and the ANZ Centre in Brisbane.

oOh! CEO Brendon Cook said the acquisition provides advertisers new opportunities to engage with the hard-to-reach audiences in CBD office lobbies, lifts and carparks in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and the Gold Coast.“It allows for deeper 360-degree engagement between brands and their audiences through innovative advertising solutions that ensure advertisers are getting the right message to the right person at the right time.”

Brendon Cook

Cook added oOh! identified CBD office towers as a potential growth sector because of their audience of business executives and high discretionary-spending millennials. oOh!’s 2015 purchase of Inlink, its first acquisition in a strategy to grow audience reach in the CBD office towers, continues to perform above expectations.

According to data from Nielsen and an independent engagement study undertaken for Locate by oOh! of the CBD office audience:

92% are more likely to earn over $100K43% travelled overseas two or more times in the past year62% drive to and from work each day63% are light to nil commercial TV viewers and 54% are light to nil newspaper readers98% engage with lift display screens and 64% engage with lobby screens65% shop during their lunch breaks82% make significant purchases for their workplace